


What Goes Up Must Come Down

by Shinkei_Shinto



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Gay, Long, M/M, Mutual Pining, lucky frog
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:14:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25989544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shinkei_Shinto/pseuds/Shinkei_Shinto
Summary: A very sleep-deprived Lucio is handed a beautiful plan.This plan does not go as planned.So. Much. Pining.
Relationships: Lucio Correia dos Santos/Jae-Eun "Casino" Kwon, Yuna "D.Mon" Lee/Hana "D.Va" Song
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	What Goes Up Must Come Down

He’s not sure what time it is in Brazil, but the sun is rising in Korea. Lucio groans into the keyboards in front of him, his desk a mess and more, barely enough room for his head among it all. He can see three separate music-aligned keyboard-type objects without lifting his head, and he had to shove paper and pens, sticky notes with various half formed sentences, back when he hoped that traditional media would help. It hadn’t. Nothing had, so far, and he was a mess of sleeplessness and the last flitting dregs of caffeine, kept awake only by the incessant but fluid melody in his head, and the sound of a mechanic hammering away on her baby.

“Hana! Hana!  _ Hana Song Please _ ,” he groaned in the general direction of the still-running video call, despite the camera screen showing only the weirdest corner of a Meka and a small figure far in the background, moving variously but wildly when he did. Daehyun, keeping an eye on Hana while she worked, but also playing video games because currently she wouldn’t allow him to touch the Meka. Or was it because he refused to participate in the heavily discouraged “feature” that she was currently wiring into this version of her hot pink hot rod…? He couldn’t remember. That might have been yesterday.

_ “What?!” _ She doesn’t bother looking up or crawling out from the belly of the beast, an arm jutting into frame, clenching some silver tool that glints into existence and then back out again. He’s so tired, it takes him a moment to format the words, dragging his head from the desk and shoving the mess that was once well-controlled hair back behind his head again. A problem for future Lucio.

“It’s morning.” Before she can yell at him again, certain she is already muttering under her breath, he manages to continue: “the two of you should go get something to eat.” Daehyun, still visible even if only a few hundred pixels tall, perks up at the suggestion, overtly branded snack containers littering the ground around him. The occasional terrible, tinny song played every time he had opened another one of the sugary, carb-ful energy drinks, and the painful intrusion had woken him from a doze more than once. Lucio knew that those drinks were all that were fueling Hana right now, and she hadn’t even emerged to steal what passed as food from Daehyun’s hoard.

“I’m not going anywhere until she’s done.” Hana replies, stubborn to a fault, making the camera shake with whatever she just did to the Meka unit. He wasn’t really sure where the thing had been placed in relation to the Meka, he just hoped it wasn’t on top of it - there had been more than one call where he had spent the entire thing staring at the arched ceiling of the base. He was pretty sure he’d written songs with that visual noise in his periphery. “Who needs to eat, anyways? I don’t see you leaving for food.” Daehyun probably says something in response to this, but the tech isn’t good enough to pick him up unless he yells, and he’s already risking having things thrown at him just by responding at all; as if on cue, Hana tosses something shiny from the cockpit of the Meka in his general direction.

She’s too tired to hit him, though, and whatever it is - Lucio can’t make it out at this distance - clangs harmlessly to the floor somewhere between the two of them. There’s a violent arm motion, and he’s pretty sure Daehyun just flipped her off, but again: can’t make it out. Hana’s words finally kind of register in his brain, though, and he pushes aside some of the notes reaching for a now-empty takeout container.

“ _ I _ have delivery, thank-you-very-much. Do  _ you _ have food there, Hana ‘Dva’ Song?” Lucio enunciates only her name, and he can picture the face she makes back at him: eyes screwed up as she pokes her tongue out at him, probably also flipping him off. It was a gesture of care as much as an insult between the two of them - three of them? Daehyun had never done it to him - after all of the times they’d done it. She didn’t care for him to use the codename, not very much anyways, so he reserved it like one would reserve a middle name, or for the cameras. 

“Nothing delivers to the Meka base. Come at me, Luci,” she smacks something inside the Meka that makes some nasty metallic noise and he grimaces, a headache fighting for space with the melody in his head. It’s still broken, echoing back and forth like some ditty he can’t quite place, a few bars here, a bit more there, but shattered and broken and frustrating.

“Bet.” He grumbles, trying to force the headache back and pulling up a screen with the gloved hand that his head was resting on just a few minutes ago. Was it really only a few minutes ago? He tries to estimate where the sun is via the light filtering through the base, but it’s hard and he doesn’t care that much and more importantly, he’s looking into what delivery companies use water taxis in Korea and how much he would need to bribe them with in order to make them deliver to the base. 

“A drone might be more feasible, you know.” Lucio looks up, to see Hana draped tiredly halfway out of the belly of the Meka, a tool still in hand, her face marked with what he guesses is oil. “I don’t think boats are allowed within the military-established-boundary of the base.” Lucio forces a breath out through his nose, pinching the window closed for later. 

“This isn’t over.” He glowers at her, knowing she has defeated his incredibly limited attention span for the moment, but future Lucio has more of a shot at finding some way through this than current Lucio. “You know you  _ have _ a mess hall. I’ve seen pictures.” In the background, Daehyun lies out on his back to see the screen that Lucio is on, holding both arms straight up with what’s probably a controller - looking like a tiny smear of gray pixels right now - held between them. His interest in this particular thing that Lucio has just said has him confused, but Hana solves the mystery for him by neatly cutting off the tail end of his words:

“No.” Daehyun cuts her off too, with a long, drawn-out,  _ very _ inflected “oooooh”, and Lucio manages to compose his face enough to fix Hana with a stare and a raised eyebrow. Or maybe both eyebrows. He doesn’t really care; the expression has elicited the correct response from Hana, so that means it was good enough. “I am not going near the mess hall until my Meka is finished.”

“... mean until  _ she’s _ not  _ theeere _ , scardey cat…” Lucio can only make out the middle of what Daehyun is saying, but it’s enough for even his exhausted mind to make the leap and figure out why she doesn’t want to leave the meka bay.

“ _ Yuna _ is there!” He hisses in delight, watching Hana’s exhausted face change from one of light irritation to one of true fear, the kind of fear that only comes across when she’s into someone and she doesn’t want anyone else to know. Lucio, of course, already knew, as did the other party half in this call, because it isn’t really  _ knowing _ \- one Hana Song likes to bemoan her self-inflicted circumstances just as much as one Lucio Correia Dos Santos does - it’s  _ doing something _ about this knowing that has Hana so scared. She fixes him with a look, but it’s too late: the change in topic and the realization has him finding a fourteenth wind somewhere, and he excitedly bounces in his chair, making it creak with the sudden motion. “You know if you went and got food you could have a chance to  _ talk _ to her, you know, get to having  _ conversations _ with the girl, Hana, you know how much you’d enjoy that,” the speed of his brain is catching up with him, accelerating his already speedy speech, and he grins at her with a mischief that he knows she will not appreciate.

“Absolutely not!” she looks almost panicked, backpedaling as if to escape into the Meka again, and Lucio points immediately at the screen and she freezes, caught, because he knows her too well and he is not letting her get off the hook that easily. He wants to have this conversation, and she knows he won’t let her go until she does, so she collapses and groans and covers her head with both of her arms, whatever tool she was holding dropping to the floor. “I  _ can’t _ .”

Lucio snorts in response, fixing the back of her head with a particular kind of glance. “You know it won’t be as bad as you think it will be.” She groans in response, or something, he’s not sure and all he can tell is that it’s a negative. “You know it’ll be a good thing for you.” She makes some word-shaped noise, gesturing with only one hand, the other still pinned to her head. “This pining can only go on so long.”

“This pining,” Hana snaps back, finally finding her footing, “will go on so long as I damn well please,” she uses the free hand to push herself up so she can stare at him, something like a one-armed pushup, and he admires her strength for a moment before she continues half yelling at him, “because Yuna Lee is intimidating as hell.”

“And hot.”

“ _ And _ hot! That doesn’t make it better, Luci!” she rolls over, scooting into the Meka but not out of view. He knows she feels protected within or just on top of her Meka, so he doesn’t chastise her as long as she remains in view, because reading Hana’s facial expressions is not only crucial to his interpretation of her not-always-fully-comprehensible-sentences, but is also one of his favourite past time sports. Mushing her face into the heels of her hands, she continues: “She’s hot  _ and _ intimidating  _ and  _ she would tear me apart in two seconds. I’m not going up against that alone. No way.”

“Daehyun!” He has to yell it into the mic a couple more times before the small figure looks up from his game, waving one hand at Lucio so he knows he can continue. “Go bring Hana to the mess hall and make her talk to Yuna!” Daehyun freezes, and although he can’t see it he imagines the young guy going pale, and then the outstretched waving hand curls into a fist.

“Do you think I want to  _ die?! _ ” He yells across the bay, scrambling to his feet and kicking cans and chip bags and snack wrappers out of his way. Hana busts out laughing, covering her mouth but far too slowly, which makes Daehyun point to her too. “Don’t laugh! You’re just as scared of her as I am! Neither of us want to suffer that! Have you seen her, Lucio?! Do you understand what you’re asking??”

“She’s hot, but she’s not  _ that _ scary,” he manages, leaning back in his chair away from the advancing mechanic despite himself. Daehyun can cut an imposing figure when his words are backed by panic and fear, his eyes a bit too wide. Lucio thinks, quietly, to himself, that Daehyun could probably use sleep as much as the other two here could. Himself included. Oh boy.

“ _ You _ are seventeen thousand kilometers away.  _ You _ do not see her every day.  _ You _ do not experience the terror of interrupting her routine, or the icy glare, or the slow turn on her heel as she rotates the entire world around her in order to stare  _ you _ down.” Every word, every sentence, brings Daehyun closer to the screen, and Hana stifles her laughter with both hands when he nearly bumps the thing with his outstretched finger, game controller still clutched tightly in his off hand. 

“You work with her every day! You have to have conversations with her. It can’t be that hard to walk up and tell her you’d love to spend some time with her, or ‘Hey Yuna I really like you want to go out sometime?’” Lucio tries again, confident with his lack of sleep and the unending melody spinning in his head. Drive an artist far enough and nothing is impossible; do so when on this little sleep, and he might just attempt it.

Daehyun seems to have short circuited, listening to Lucio talk, staring at the screen like it’s done something that it is not supposed to be able to do, like a problem in a machine that cannot happen, and yet is happening anyways. This suggestion is so far out of the possible for him that it does not compute, and it takes Daehyun a full minute and a half to respond.

“Do. You. Think. I. Want. To.  _ Die? _ ” He starts, and then stops, staring at Lucio through the screen as if he is still some incomprehensible being, spouting words in a language he cannot understand. “You.  _ You _ . Say that shit to her and see what happens. You! Come here and tell her that, to her face, you say that to Yuna fucking Lee and you see what happens.  _ I _ am not risking  _ my _ life.” 

In the silence that follows, Lucio has an idea. It is the kind of idea that is only born in this kind of silence, when an accusation has been made, a demand, a  _ challenge _ has been issued to him, and he cannot help but to rise to the occasion. Sometimes it is serious; sometimes it is about something that branded him a “revolutionary”; sometimes it is about a backyard game of soccer against a ten-year-old who will go home and tell his family that he saw the coolest trick shot that day.

Sometimes, it’s an idea about torturing a friend - in the most helpful way possible. Lucio, slowly, smiles, a grin splitting his face that rivals the bags under his eyes for the most obvious feature he currently holds, and it is Daehyun’s turn to take an uncertain step back at the intensity of his expression, and perhaps also at the dawning realization that he has spawned a monster plan, entirely without intent to, and now entirely out of his ability to control or stop it. Daehyun throws his hands up in defeat as Lucio starts to speak.

“Hana. Hana. Hana.  _ Hana you have to bring me to Korea _ .” Hana looks up at him, the ‘whatthefuck’ scrawled obviously across her features, as if he actually expects her to bring him to Korea in that moment, in her half unmade Meka. He gestures, dismissively, and explains a little better. “I just need you to get me in with your team. I can get to the  _ country _ on my own, that’s not a problem, but meeting everyone - getting your squad together - that’s not something I can do.” It is at this point that Daehyun becomes interested, his hands slowly coming down from his ‘I give up’ posture to something more alert, fiddling with the controller. “I  _ can, _ however, make you talk to her. I can even say those terrifying words  _ for you _ .”

Hana objects, instantly. She even devolves into Korean for a moment, which tells Lucio that he has hit upon a really good idea, one that he knows will absolutely work and she can even see it working, which is what has her so emotional. He grins, listening to her yell and watching her gesture, only mildly surprised when Daehyun joins in. The fervor with which he joins is unexpected, as he argues with Lucio’s plan, against Hana’s attempts to stop him, speaking in rapid fire korean and english and maybe something else - or is that just Lucio’s tiredness catching up with him? - until Hana plants her face into her Meka, cutting off all further words with a very long groan. Daehyun nearly cackles with success, and Lucio waits for the noise to stop before demanding an explanation.

“You show up here and we’ll make the rest of it happen.” He grins, fervently, and Hana grumbles something again. “She’s making me do it, of course, but I know I can get her to help too - once she gets  _ over herself! _ ” Hana swears at him, a word that even Lucio is familiar with, and Lucio grins. Oh, she’s pissed. “Because she’ll enjoy this after she’s done  _ pouting _ \- you useless lesbian - because we’re  _ going out for dinner too!” _ Now Lucio sees why Daehyun is so excited; he managed to wrangle Hana into agreeing to go out for food with the squad and him, for a real, honest-to-gods meal, and he’s going to get to witness her finally dealing with her long term crush. It’s like a dream come true for him, Lucio muses, since he’s too afraid to do it himself.

“Alright. When?”

-

It doesn’t take a lot to make Lucio Correia dos Santos smile. The victory that he had had this morning, arguing with PR, security, and managers, would have been enough to keep him beaming all day, but the trip itself had been only better. It was impossible not to be recognized, which is what management always wanted to avoid - keep him on private planes and in hidden cars and surrounded by a barrier that kept him from everyone else.

Lucio had none of it. For once, he won, sneaking onto a commercial flight in spite of all of the protests, nearly alone, and delivered safely to the hands of the most famous - and thus well guarded - Meka pilot in Korea. Visits weren’t completely impossible, and there was of course work to be done while he was there - checking out new venues, negotiating shows, concerts, merchandise. He didn’t usually handle things so personally, beyond checking out setups and working through some of the negotiations, but he’d taken on some of the work in order to get here for a solid week. Somehow, that had been enough to convince management to let him fly with real people, not other superstars who barely wanted to speak to anyone else.

He lived off of that. With such a long flight, too, and daytime at that, he came well prepared: stories to tell, people to entertain, autographs, little stupid charms and pens and hats and songs, things that people loved. Sharpies in every pocket, pads of themed paper - for everyone’s favourite lyric, or phrase, or album title. His face hurt from smiling, he knew that the second they hit the ground social media would flood with selfies and stories and the occasional video - he was always pleasantly surprised by the willingness of people to hold back on recording his presence, his little melodies, the things he shared that he didn’t want the whole world to partake in. 

So he stepped off of the plane, onto the runway, with a grin splitting his face. Here, he’d get to leave his babysitters, both of them off to do various managerial things, so that he could spend the first evening with the famous Hana Song, who he knew would be waiting somewhere here for him. He had asked, once, how they had managed customs and entry into other countries, and after the first half hour of explaining the complicated process, and deals, and carefully crafted agreement that had eventually come out of that, he had resolved to never really understand.

All that aside, Hana was indeed waiting for him on the tarmac. She was in some officious looking jacket, a hat pulled down over her face, taking these spare moments before the world found the two of them together to breathe. He knew the feeling, he knew how valuable those few minutes to yourself were, and so he took his time coming down off the plane, wishing his co-travelers well, shaking hands, smiling, crouching down to let one small kid hug him around the neck before finally breaking away - with many final waves - and striding towards Hana. It becomes evident only at this moment that Daehyun has been dragged along, some piece of technology in his hands that Lucio can’t quite make out at this distance. He’s leaning against something a few feet away, apparently not particularly interested in whatever is going on, and doesn’t look up until Lucio yells at them, just loud enough to be heard over the noise of the airport all around them.

“Ey, gamer girl! I hear you’re famous or something?” Hana’s eyes are narrowed right up until she sees who it is, at which point a grin breaks her face, and she mimes as if to make a rude gesture at him. He can feel the middle finger even though she can’t actually present him with it, being in a public place and everything.

“Lucio!” It’s Daehyun who calls back, however, jerking up and splitting into a smile too, stuffing his distraction tech into some pocket or something and not-quite-running towards him. Lucio accepts the hug, finding to some chagrin that Daehyun is actually quite a bit taller than he is, sans his skates and with his hair tamed down. He waves out a hand towards Hana, gesturing for her to join the two of them, and - barely suppressing rolling her eyes - she strides over.

She’s. Also quite a bit taller than he is. He suddenly feels very small, smashed between the two of them, and makes a quiet, personal note to get his hands on his skates as soon as possible. After a moment or two, they separate, and he retains the two of them on either arm, bringing only his backpack for luggage. It’d been checked. Several times.

Hana mutters something about military clearance as she flashes her badge at every new doorway, guards, people, detectors. Daehyun has his prominently displayed, but doesn’t bother taking it in hand or looking at anyone, and Lucio can feel him tensing against his arm as they make progress through the airport. The public is coming upon them, slowly, with each level of security cleared. Finally, he tugs his arm away from Lucio, and Lucio squeezes a hand on Hana’s before letting go, hooking his thumbs in his backpack straps and preparing himself for the onslaught.

Screams greet them when they finally breach the doors to the outside world, cameras flashing and people waving frantically at both superstars. The world is green and pink around them, and with the slightest, quickest glance, Lucio sees that Hana’s face has twisted from the honest but mean-looking grin she wore on the runway to something more presentable. He has to force his thoughts about it away, though, as the public awaited him, too. He still had a few things left, reaching out to hands outstretched with charms, with notes, with just his grasp here and there. He managed a quick signature or two, the sharpie nearly lost from his hand as they tried to rush slowly through.

The whole experience was never really pleasant, Lucio much preferring the more private and one-on-one experience of places like the plane, and Hana never enjoying the face that she had to present to the public. He understood it, even if he didn’t really agree with it; she was the face of the nation. She was a hero, literally, she had been greenlighted and lived within red tape, while he had more freedom to function as he wished, because of what he had done, how he had started, his status as a revolutionary rather than a war hero. The same military card that had granted her access to the tarmac hung like a chain here, keeping her confined to certain expressions, certain responses, certain actions. Neither of them had to like it.

Daehyun is already in the car by the time that the two of them make it there, Lucio fondly shaking a hand and saying something - he’s not sure what at this point - in response to their enthusiasm, and Hana smiling brightly, full of an unshown emotion, dipping her head here and there and thanking people over and over again. She is the last into the back of the car, driven by two security types that give Lucio a really unfriendly vibe, Daehyun crammed as far into the car as he can be, hiding behind the same thing he had been holding again. Lucio cannot tell what exactly is on the screen obscuring his face, but he feels for the mechanic, thrown into this world that he isn’t used to, with people who rise to the occasion - becoming people he doesn’t know.

Hana slides in and her face instantly drops. It makes all three of them a little more comfortable, a little more real, and having her - even upset and glowering - sitting with them, real, and not presenting for anyone, is invaluable. Lucio reaches across to one of her hands, clenched tightly in her lap, and pries it from her, running his thumbs over the back of her hand until she drops some of the tension. It doesn’t solve everything, but it starts to help, and while her shoulders remain stiff, her hands stop shaking in her lap. Daehyun doesn’t emerge from his corner, and Lucio knows him less well, so the three of them sit in silence the whole blessedly uneventful drive to the chosen restaurant venue.

In an incredible stroke of luck, the car is able to pull up through a valet lane which is completely devoid of people. Two omnic personnel wait, incredibly casual, reserved; at such a high class establishment Lucio is not surprised, but pleased for the rather neutral looks instead of the barely-contained-excitement he knew anyone with varying facial expressions would have. The three of them are ushered in through the doors to a delightful lobby, cool and quiet compared to the busy city life outside, where Daehyun finally stuffs his tech into the same pocket, standing uncomfortably among such splendor. Hana seems bored, cut off, while Lucio bounces lightly in his shoes, looking around at the black marble and softly glowing lights and what might be delightful, massive fish tanks hidden in walls. The elevator arrives too soon for him to wander off checking things out, for which they should all be grateful - Lucio has a habit of sneaking away from everyone he is with to make friends, find problems that need to be solved, or generally get himself involved in telling stories and wrapped up in hours-long distractions. The moment those elevator doors open, though, he has to pause.

The view is breathtaking. Even just seen through the second set of doors, which he barges through before everyone else, the entire city is spread - and then unfolds - and then he stops short of touching the plate glass of the windows, gasping ever so slightly as he looks out over skyscrapers, the ocean shimmering just at the edge of his view. When he turns, Hana has visibly relaxed, and Daehyun elbows her in the side and she shoves him back and Lucio smiles - for real - and moves back towards them. The room is rather large for the three of them, but he knows that’s not to last once the whole group arrives, so he takes a moment to look around. One side is entirely taken by a round table-booth, surrounded by high, plush seating, a real problem to get into but comfortable as all hell. The windows form one wall, the door set opposite them, and the other two walls are filled by screens. One side is beautifully blue, a sky-mountain scene broken up by floating petals of various colors, while the other one - the one you could see most easily from the booth seating - is some vague downtown location, rain spilling across the vehicles moving through the intersection in view.

“You going to sit down, or just keep boppin around all night?” Hana’s voice breaks his concentration, and he smiles, embarrassed, finally continuing his walk towards the table. It isn’t even that far, but he still found himself distracted by everything. This did not bode well for his mission tonight, so he sits and gathers himself and tries to focus.

“Nah, without the skates it’s no fun. Plus, how would I torture you all night if I wasn’t next to you, elbowing you into the famous D.mon, Meka pilot?” Hana groans loudly, sliding down in the booth a little bit so she can tilt her head up at the ceiling, pressing her ponytail into the cushion. Daehyun is already enjoying himself, watching this unfold, taking a place on the edge of the booth seating. He knows he’s going to get up to allow others in, at least once, depending on when certain individuals get here.

“Did I miss anyone?” The individual that peers in is in fact shorter than Lucio, seeming almost tiny in the doorway, but it is not helped by their posture and timidness in entering.

“No! Seung-Hwa, get in here!” Hana shouts, rather more loudly than necessary, leaning out over the table to wave at the small person. Lucio realizes that they must be some part of the Meka squadron, although they look so young beneath their mussed hair he would never have thought so himself. 

“This is Overlord; Lucio Correia dos Santos.” Daehyun makes the introductions, gesturing between the two of them. Seung-Hwa, who Lucio vaguely recognizes the code name of, walks forward and smiles, leaning in to offer a hand to Lucio. He takes it, gladly, scrutinizing the other’s face and posture and how tightly they grip his hand, trying to decide on something when Hana elbows him in the ribs.

“Just ask, gay boy, we can all see the gears turning in your head.” She grins at him, and he sputters a little bit, “it radiates off of you. You can ask. I promise.” Seung-Hwa is smiling, though, and after another moment of feeling utterly betrayed by Hana, he manages.

“Are you - are there - how would you like me to refer to - your pronouns?” Lucio finally gets the proper order of words out, distracted both by Hana’s snickering, and…. Her sudden silence.

“Take your pick. They-them is fine, too.” Seung-Hwa is very quiet, and there’s a knowing sense to them as they speak, stepping a little to the side. This is done, of course, to allow Hana to view the doorway, and Lucio comes to the slow realization that it is occupied. He can’t see whoever is there, moving just out of view, but he knows they are - because of Hana’s reaction.

He smiles, slowly, at her, Hana having a better angle on the door, while Lucio chose to sit able to see the city as night falls, which also gives him a delightful view of Hana’s face. His knowing smile hits her, delayed, and her face instantly reddens, a blush spreading across both cheeks until she looks away.

“Hello-o darlings, it seems we’re early among the squad,” she turns, entering, her eyes hooded and her face nearly smug as she catches Lucio’s gaze. She smiles, and he tries to find a word for it as she stalks across the space, taking all attention to her persona, her look, to the slow twist of her head as she moves her hair out of the way, extending one slim hand across the table with no difficulty - she’s at least as tall as Hana, but much longer, with more poise, with more of a persona. She’s  _ sultry _ , he realizes as he reaches to take her offered hand in both of his, not quite getting up or remaining seated. It allows him to lean forward, giving her his full attention both in his gaze and his words and in his posture, layering on while he spoke.

“Oh, D.mon! You pilot the Beast don’t you, that lovely red meka and the streams that go along with it, oh goodness I’m not sure I remember your name -” he has so much practice speaking quickly that he even manages to enunciate every word and every syllable, breaking only for the short response: “Oh, Yuna, Lee Yuna,” and she’s a bit taken aback and a bit breathless and raised eyebrows, but he is not deterred: “Of course! I’ve seen your streams, you know the ones I’m talking about and of course also those from way back when, you know, the ones where you used to dual stream with our Hana here? Those were sure something special, I really did enjoy the two of you and while I’m better friends with miss D.va I remember your synergy in the gaming world and it was just the coolest thing to watch! You were so impressive even back then I can’t imagine how much better you two have gotten over the years you’ll have to give me a look at something of yours this week or - of course - you know Hana doesn’t share, and poor Daehyun doesn’t know any, but I know you of all people in the world would know some gossip from back then? I’m sure?” Lucio is smiling, broadly, reflecting a bit of her hooded eyes and sultry gaze and she laughs, and he knows Hana is entranced, and Yuna puts those beautifully manicured red nails on the table as she slides in next to her, allowing Lucio to really get a good look at Hana’s reddened face, her gaze following Yuna’s every motion.

“You’re really a lot more flamboyant in person, you know?” It is Lucio’s turn to laugh, now, because he can hear the friendly accusation in her words, the mutual assumed queerness forming a kind of instant bond. “Suppose you have to turn it down for the rest of the world?”

“Oh but you’re special,” he responds, immediately, and Hana makes a bit of a strangled noise, “so you all can have the full experience.” Even Seung-Hwa is smiling now, sneaking in between Daehyun and Yuna, leaving just about enough space for one more person on each end of the round booth seating.

As it turns out, Seung-Hwa’s quiet sense of humor balances out Lucio’s rather robust jokes, and Yuna is quite amused throughout their conversations. Daehyun groans at appropriate moments and breaks first, using his position at the edge of the booth to slip out and catch a waiter outside the entry doors and order drinks. When Hana pins him down about waiting for everyone else, he fires back with ‘the majority is already here and I can’t listen to one more pun sober’. Hana relents when she learns that he has ordered alcohol. Seung-Hwa offers a chance for a terrible pun and Lucio takes him up on it; by the time drinks arrive the two of them have Hana and Yuna in stitches and Daehyun extends a hand towards the alcohol he can only hear being placed on the table, but not see: his head having hit the wood long ago.

Eventually, maybe fifteen minutes after the drinks arrive, Yuna slyly suggests that they not continue to enjoy drinks without any food in them, and Hana - who balked at the original drink order - immediately agrees, and Lucio grins behind a well-placed hand. Daehyun is  _ sent _ this time to retrieve a waiter, who enters with perfect poise and a well assembled facade, offering them lists of carefully selected appetizers until three are chosen - one from each of the meka squad members, Lucio completely lost for every single thing mentioned. The waiter takes everything in stride, even the slightly inebriated slightly too loud Hana, who has found herself corralled by a slender, red-tipped arm over her shoulders. 

When their small plates arrive, balanced excellently on the arms of one rather tall member of the waitstaff, they come just a fraction of time before the second-to-last squad member, causing a momentary shuffle in the doorway. Apologies and words are exchanged, and it catches the eye of Lucio, sitting on the open end of the booth, and the person finally finds themselves ushered in just before the waiter, yellow jacket boldly alerting everyone else that they’re there.

“Kiiing!” Hana says, ever so slightly loud, which earns her a light squeeze from the more reserved Yuna, trying to tamper down her excitement for the moment. At his callsign, the newcomer looks up, a little abashed, perhaps embarrassed, and gives the smallest idea of a wave. He’s beckoned over, and provides his explanation while the waiter carefully lays out the ordered food, making no fuss over any of it.

“Oh, I’m, I’m late, I know, I’m sorry, I’m,” He starts, smiling, a hand running through his already unkempt hair. Lucio would call it bedhead, but he suspects that this squad member hasn’t slept in some time. “I was, in the library, again, working, you know? Just, lost track of time!” He laughs, and slides in next to Daehyun, who scoots closer to Seung-Hwa, making room. Everyone but Lucio is now tightly packed, shoulders touching, sharing drinks. King has started again, at Seung-Hwa’s quiet urging: “It’s, you know, it’s that research project I was talking about? A couple weeks ago? I’ve just been looking into, into restoration, there’s so much to research, so many ways to go about it, and I haven’t had time to have anything started, so I’ve just been reading and reading, you know?” He stutters, repeats himself, a little less as he goes on, and with Seung-Hwa’s continuous interest, “King” gets a bit more into it, and finds himself talking at length, a drink placed in his hand when his throat goes dry, and Lucio snags the opportunity:

“Hana. Hey.  _ HAna. _ ” It takes an elbow to her ribs to get her attention, no word taking her away from Yuna, only the light touch finally managing to tear her away. “What’s his  _ name _ ?”

“Oh! King’s Kyung-Soo.” She smiles, so pleased she near closes her eyes with the motion, and Lucio wonders at her for a moment. How can she be this happy just around Yuna, and yet not find the confidence to say anything to her? How can Yuna see this face and not think anything special of it?

Hana turns her attention back to Kyung-Soo, or Yuna really, and Lucio takes the opportunity to murmur the name to himself a few times, testing his pronunciation of it, watching the miniature lecture on some incredibly complicated ancient technology unfold. Seung-Hwa is excellent at following this project, and asks the appropriate questions here, and makes the appropriate noises there, and eventually Yuna leans over Hana and picks at one of the plates of food that have been there for a handful of minutes already. This sparks everyone else: while Kyung-Soo still leads much of the conversation, finding a topic that interests Daehyun as well, everyone reaches for food, appetizers, most of it so small that they’re able to consume each in one bite. Yuna has to coax Lucio to try one, everything unfamiliar to him, not entirely unsure but certainly not confident enough to go for it without prompting. She goes through a couple of the options first, leaning over Hana to point at them, to show him, or whatever other various excuse.

“See? These aren’t so odd, I promise, I think if you’ll just try it you’ll like it just fine. Hmm?” Lucio is listening to her, really, but so much of his fleeting attention is also drifting towards Hana, smushed between the two of them.

“Hmm.” He responds, considering the small dish between the two of them. Hana sputters, as he scoots closer to her and therefore she scoots to allow him room, which leaves no such room between her and Yuna. The one she’s chosen to offer him, to convince him to try, really, looks a little bit like very thin cut fries, very well browned, but smells delightful and a bit spicy and a bit like fish.

“They’re anchovies,” she adds helpfully, which earns her a bit of a side eye from Lucio. “We call it myulchi bokkeum, it’s really good! You’re not scared, are you?” At this, finally, he relents. For all of her attempts, Yuna has finally landed on the way to get him to try something on the table before them: her gentle prodding finally convinces him to rise to the occasion.

To his surprise, it tastes nothing like he would expect it to, being called ‘anchovies’, and after a moment or two he reaches for another bite, not bothering to comment but rather to enjoy. Although he doesn’t see it, Hana reluctantly palms a bill under the table, passing it through both Yuna and Seung-Hwa to Daehyun. Her confidence in her friend’s willingness to try new foods had been somewhat lacking, and now her wallet would suffer for it. Not that either of the two between the betters were unfamiliar with this; they all made tiny bets on everything, here and there, although not one of them was ever consistently the winner.

Eventually, as the food begins to run out, someone asks whether they’re ever really going to eat, and Yuna and Kyung-Soo exchange a knowing glance across the table. Lucio, catching on, and feeling hunger beginning to gnaw at him, butts in:

“So why are we waiting?” Seung-Hwa pauses in whatever it was he was quietly talking to Daehyun about, watching to see who will answer him. It is Daehyun who finally breaks the silence, the only other non-squad member, apparently also the only one willing to call the missing person out on his shit.

“He’s  _ late _ .” Daehyun starts, and Hana makes a motion to chastise him, but it takes only a single withering look from Daehyun and she backs off. “He’s  _ always _ late. It’s like he thinks he’s too cool for us.”

“He does not,” Seung-Hwa interrupts, his voice soft, and Daehyun grumpily looks back to the drink he’s holding instead of continuing. “He’s just caught up in everyone, all the time, much like others at this table, too.” Hana blushes crimson when Yuna’s arm around her squeezes a bit tighter, trying to hide in her bunny-branded jacket.

As if they had summoned him with their fun, a voice announces itself from the hallway just beyond the door. Lucio hears it first, closest to the exit, and thus still unable to see who it belongs to. Whoever it is, their voice is near divine, quiet enough that he can’t make out any of the words just yet, but strong and commanding, drifting in with a certainty that makes him all the more eager to see the person behind it. He’s already idly in love, the kind of passing attraction he feels when someone aesthetically breathtaking passes by, but instead of the visuals it’s the audio, for once. He wants to hear them sing, he wants to open with them, he wants them to produce music or sing along with a radio, it’s a delightful experience and he closes his eyes to luxuriate in it before they enter and inevitably break the spell. Unbeknownst to Lucio, Hana has relented in her personal embarrassment for a moment: while the rest of the table continues to make slight, sly jokes at the expense of their missing member, playing the game of near-getting-caught doing it, she chooses not to join in, watching him instead. Her blush, once so deep that it vied for attention with her jacket, lessens, and a slow, small, nearly devious smile slips into her expression. She knows something he does not, watching him listen, watching him relax next to her, and when he opens his eyes to look at the door she waits nearly holding her breath for his reaction. He’s watching the door when -

“Oh no, I really do appreciate the offers. It’s always so nice, having people want to help me out, having professionals offer to park it for me, but I really just like handling my bike on my own terms - and wouldn’t you know, I just happened to get the last good spot on the lot?” His voice, with words strengthening it, is even better than before, and Lucio’s mouth falls apart in the softest gasp - and he’s barely seen him yet. “And, too, such luck to get away from all those eyes on the highway - I’m already late enough after that interview went over a half an hour, I’m so glad I didn’t get stopped again by anyone else…” he trails off for a moment, making eye contact with Hana across the room, stopping to straighten his jacket, a helmet tucked under one arm. “Unlike our dear D.va here, goodness, can’t anyone get enough of us pilots? I saw that impromptu photoshoot from the airport on three different news channels just on the way here! Maybe you took all their attention away from me, hmm?” He grins and winks at Hana, lasciviously, starting to walk over towards the table, followed by a somewhat disgruntled looking staff member, who seems to be waiting for his helmet and heavy, black, leather biking jacket. He pauses, to pull his gloves off, add those to the jacket pocket, and then hand it all over - to the relief of the individual, who promptly exits. “Thank you, and sorry, again,” he turns towards the table, several of the group snickering, “since I seem to have missed the introductions,” a hand laid flat on the table, a casual glance thrown at him, and: “who is this?”

For once in his life, Lucio can’t talk. For all of his presentation, for all of his engagement with others and his smooth, too-quick speech, for all of his flirting and storytelling and lyric snaps, for all of the exchange and interaction with others, the skill that he has developed for his entire life leaves him suddenly struck silent. He manages to breathe, a tiny inhale, when Hana throws an arm around his shoulders, her other hand on the shoulder closest to her, chipping the trance a little bit when she shakes him just an inch or two with the movement.

“Oh, don’t tell me you don’t recognize him, you ass, I know you’re playing it. This is that ever so slightly famous singer, that frog-themed guy you just might have heard of when he released that little album called  _ ‘Synesthesia’? _ ” She’s poking the fun at him now, but the unnamed stranger takes the time to stare directly at Lucio, his height making him nearly tower over Lucio, still sitting in the booth. He leaves it, for a beat, for a moment, Lucio’s heart thundering in his ears now, before he responds.

“Oh, Lucio, yes.” He smiles, and Lucio’s breath catches in his throat again, missing the proper way to pronounce his name when he introduces himself, stepping to the side of the booth. “Jae-Eun, better known as Casino.” He knows that code name, at least, he’s heard it before, and when he extends a hand to shake his it takes him a moment to respond. “Your music is beyond words, you know.”

If he wasn’t blushing before, that would have done it. Casino asks, with some words that he certainly does not hear, standing close enough that Lucio can smell his cologne, or something sweet that wafts off of him, if he can sit there. “There’s space here enough, yes? The five of them over there don’t seem to have anything to spare, and don’t make me go pulling up a chair all alone over there.” It’s not really a question, nothing like a request, and Hana uses the arm thrown out over his shoulders to drag him closer to her and make enough room for Casino to sit down on the other edge of the circular booth.

Lucio is dying, quietly, managing to keep most of his composure visible on the outside, but his hands are clenched in his lap and the heat moves from just his face to his neck and ears, and he can’t seem to find his voice anywhere. Hana finally removes her arm from his shoulders, but only so much so to elbow him back in the side, which earns her the most fleeting of glances. She’s got the biggest shit-eating grin splitting her face, and he knows she  _ knows _ \- he knows that no one else at this table can really see the extent of his fluster because none of them know him well enough but  _ she knows _ . She knows every sign, every tell, every little thing he is doing right now that he can’t stop doing and Casino slides into the booth next to him so close that their legs are pressed together and oh, no. Whatever composure was left, whatever scraps of his concentration that he had been clinging to while Hana physically helped hold them down fled instantly. Casino has to very literally squeeze in next to him, pressing his shoulders to Lucio’s as he leans inwards to talk to Seung-Hwa or Kyung-Soo across the table. This means that Lucio leans into Hana, who is already leaning into Yuna, and the four of them find themselves very tightly packed together in their half of this round-table-cum-booth. Hana, approaching moderately drunk, does not mind the close contact so much, and in fact uses Casino’s arrival and subsequent squishing to enter Yuna’s personal space even further.

To Yuna’s credit, she laces an arm between the famous pair, drawing Hana closer with red accented fingers curled around her shoulder. Lucio, is, however, too flustered and distracted to do anything about this action, not even pointing it out or coming up with some cute one-liner to make Hana sputter, every piece of his concentration focused fully on  _ not _ gazing star struck at the tall white-haired pilot next to him. That pilot’s arrival prompts a general call for food, and - to no one’s surprise - Daehyun is the one to wave excitedly at a surreptitiously placed waiter until they come forward to take his detailed orders for food. Lucio would later comment on his specific and accurate knowledge of everyone’s food preferences, and Daehyun would find himself startled to know that not everyone keeps track of that kind of thing. 

The vast spread that could be called a meal arrives shortly, as if the well-run restaurant had predicted their order upon Casino’s late arrival and needed only their goahead to run the plates to the table. There was perhaps also an element of the squad being high profile regulars at this particular establishment, but that train of thought was quickly lost among the dishes piled high before Lucio. This distraction provides a kind of momentary relief, the spread of food more diverse than his usual fare, and all of it new to him. Hana has been kind in exposing him to Korean delights, although Daehyun would say that she had been  _ lazy _ in exposing him because she didn’t  _ eat  _ real food, so this sudden explosion of food is far more than he is used to. He hopes, at first, in vain, that the meal will give him a chance to engage, to talk to the entire squad, to break from this flustered silence that has overtaken him, but this is not to be. Instead, everyone seems to break off into small sections or even just pairs of quiet chatter around the whole table, especially as everyone starts to actually eat and conversation becomes rather difficult. This doesn’t stop him from trying - Lucio is at his core a social conversationalist - and yet, when he moves to ask a question to someone about something they’re talking to, when he makes an attempt to engage with a topic that really does interest him, leaning away from Casino as he does in order to lean closer to the rest of the table - he finds himself solidly thwarted. Casino has him well and truly pinned, and seems to know the perfect rhythm to disrupt him. He reaches around Lucio at the precise moment, going to muss Hana’s hair and throw a comment her way, that draws the words from his mouth and the breath from his chest. He leans just so, halfway into Lucio’s lap, a sly look from the side, excusing himself with a long reach for something across the table that oh, wouldn’t he like to try, too? He manages, very quickly, to find the kind of compliments that strike Lucio silent, and deliver them in that smooth and incredibly desirable voice, left quietly between the two of them, for no one else to hear. 

As the night grows older, this pattern only becomes worse, the absolute pinnacle of his suffering occurring when everyone at the table has found their way into their drinks. The food disappears from the table, dishes taken here and there by very quiet staff, who must be at least somewhat amused by this display, leaving them with only the occasional lasting snack-thing, and with their drinks. Across the table, Seung-Hwa and Kyung-Soo have drifted from their conversational topics into some kind of technobabble about MEKA units and their operating systems, heads nearly touching in the seriousness of their conversation; as this has gone on, Hana has found herself drawn in as well. While she has few comments to give, but the deep interest she has in the units means she has forgotten all semblance of composure, lying halfway on the table and halfway in Yuna’s lap. This is not all her own doing: she’s been drawn in by her squad mate’s arm around her shoulders, the attention making her confident, the alcohol giving her an ease that belies the nervousness she expressed to Lucio in the months prior, pining after the taller pilot. He’s pretty sure that Daehyun is over there taking notes of some kind, but that is somewhere far across the sea of food and drinks, dishes still filled halfway with uneaten food and the occasional empty survivor from the staff’s careful cleanliness, holding abandoned serving spoons or chopsticks: a world that keeps him neatly separate from the conversation that is occupying most of the squad. He can barely hear it with everything going on, and regardless, he’s not paying a whole lot of attention to that side of the table - for good reason. 

He isn’t the only one paying them no mind: Casino’s focus has not drifted, but been carefully honed in on something entirely other. At some point in the night he had obtained a brightly colored drink, about half gone now and clasped only loosely in his off hand, filling the far edge of Lucio’s view. Oh, to those thoughts of watching the city darken and teasing his friend, brought to life long before this situation had made itself inescapable. What remains of his view is occupied by the Casino’s whole presentation; his stark white hair and sharp features framed by the subtly branded jacket. Much less than D.Va brand or even than that which Yuna wore, with her D.Mon’s face on it, Casino has a smooth, soft jacket made mostly of dull gray fabric, with the occasional lightning lime green edge breaking up the monotony. These slashes of green take Lucio’s gaze, trailing along them while he half listens to Casino talking, the melody of his voice more present in his consciousness than the specific words he’s saying. His attention becomes rapt on following the gestures of the green and the slight motions of that brilliantly colored drink, used to gesture now and then, so it is only when he hears his name that he realizes: Casino has not just been speaking, but speaking  _ to him _ . His voice is so natural, low and deep, filling the space that they’re occupying in the room so well that he’s been listening to it like he listens to music: quietly, absorbing it ambiently, enjoying the experience and not really hearing the words until he stops and makes a point to pay attention. He swallows hard, now, making that conscious choice to understand the words and force his attention back into the present moment, with the very distracting Casino, realizing only just then that. Oh. No.

He’s been talking about him.

“It’s been on in the base for months now, you know? We listen to so much music there, working, learning, even playing games, so I don’t think it’s ever really completely silent, but your albums are definitely some of our favourites.” Lucio could scream. This person -  _ this person _ \- listening to his music? Enjoying it so much to call it a favourite? If he had been completely sober he probably would have found a way to exit this conversation half an hour ago, but as it is, with his blood rushing in his face, with the tall pilot trapping him in the booth, Casino isn’t about to let that happen. He’s leaning into him, shuttering the space so he can speak in a low, soothing, smooth voice that Lucio can feel just as much as he can hear. “I’ve gotten -” he pauses, a chuckle escaping between the words, his voice hinting at his flustration, “-this is embarrassing, but I’ve gotten into the habit of playing  _ Synesthesia _ while I work on my MEKA, you know? It makes the hours run by, and you of all people know we spend enough of those in the bay - although I’m not, of course, anything near that of your dear Hana,” he laughs again, a real laugh that has Lucio’s heart buzzing in his chest, watching Casino’s face. “And yet, I’d bet, if you looked, my favourite song out of all of them has at least a thousand plays on it, haha.” He pauses, suddenly, looking up from the drink that had caught his focus, now, too, in order to meet Lucio’s gaze, and he wonders for an instant if Casino is going to break this spell between the two of them, but instead: “You have to hear that all the time, huh?”

“Oh,” Lucio manages only a very small response at first, barely a word, opening and closing his mouth a couple of times before managing anything further. It’s not much: “it’s, alright, ahm.”

“I guess I  _ am _ a little drunk,” Casino leans back and laughs, and it’s melodious, and alongside the whirling of his emotions he feels a twinge of regret for not answering more thoroughly, “I’m so sorry for rambling at you.”

“No -” his voice is rough, nearly cracking, and he shakes his head instead, buying himself a moment to find his own drink and drown his inability to speak in that. After another moment, forcing his focus, finding his composure by staring very hard at the wood grain in the table, he tries to meet Casino’s eyes again, but gods, he’s smiling, and that smile is nearly enough to take all of his determination away again. “No, no, please - this is  _ nice _ . I know - I know people like my music, I know people listen and buy it and come to concerts and enjoy it - by the hundreds. The thousands. But - but to know who - but to know  _ you _ listens to it? Enjoys  _ my _ stuff?” Despite himself, he’s smiling, finding himself having to pause, shaking his head in disbelief, trying to rid himself of that slipped smile before continuing, unable to look at Casino as he does: “You could listen to anything, anything in the world, and yet you choose  _ my _ music.”

When he does manage to look up, he realizes that he’s leaned closer. In talking, even so little, in explaining himself, in carrying the same low, even, nearly musical tone that Casino started this conversation with, he’s slipped away from his good posture and lost that distance, narrowing it down to… none. They’re so close. They’re a little  _ too  _ close, Lucio thinks, really, his heart in his throat again as he looks up to see Casino looking right at him. His eyes are shaded thanks to his pose, as he is also leaning into the quickly disappearing space between them, and Lucio can catch the slightest flicker of green there, a splintered reflection of the iconic color that they’re both wearing. He doesn’t know whose green he’s seeing.

He thinks, for half a moment, for a second, for an instant, that maybe, just maybe, Casino is into this, and his breath hitches in his chest again, his heart feeling like it skipped a beat, and then - then Casino slides his free hand over Lucio’s. Everything that he’s felt so far pales suddenly, electricity rocketing to life in his chest, his heart running like he’s been lit up from this simple touch. He feels shivers across his thigh where Casino has barely trapped his hand, and the breath that finally escapes his throat makes his shoulders shudder with its loss. He looks up, a little, his eyes having drifted closed for the half second that he enjoyed the experience of those emotions, and when he does - when he looks up - Casino is right there. He’s a hand’s breadth away, close enough to touch, his eyes hooded as he continues just close enough that Lucio can  _ feel _ his presence, and he draws a shaky breath in and Casino’s hand tightens over his just below the table, his fingertips digging into his thigh, and he’s smiling - he’s smiling, something that could be described as a smirk nearly out of view and Lucio  _ hopes _ ,

“Casino!” Kyung-Soo slams a hand down onto the table, and Lucio jerks up and away and that intimate distance is suddenly multiplied to a gulf that spreads between them with an impassable quality that makes him  _ hurt _ . His heart is still thundering in his ears, and his face is burning so much that he’s sure Casino’s caught on, but somehow, somehow he leans back just a bit until Casino can see Kyung-Soo. For his part, not startled in the slightest, Casino unfolds himself and leans forward again - but adjusting his trajectory at the last moment so he can lean over and past Lucio and not just directly into him again and he asks:

“Hmm?” Casino’s cool is unshakable, his visage unchanged between the moment Lucio saw it in its entirety again and as he looks towards his friend. His eyes are still hooded, he’s still smiling softly, interest written across his features, but Lucio thinks - quietly, to himself, not daring to breathe a word - that he detects the slightest wry twist there, the barest indication to the outside world that he is displeased at having been interrupted. 

On the other side of the equation, although not as far away physically anymore, Lucio still feels the loss of their intimacy. He’s completely ignoring whatever incredibly complicated technical question has shattered his downright, ostensibly gay, moment, taking the time instead to recover. Lucio manages a couple of shuddery breaths before he can force it into stillness, regaining his posture by degrees, trying to take the tightness out of his shoulders and allow the trembling there to calm. He manages, consciously, to undo his grip on his drink, shuffling the glass around in his hand, flexing his fingers slightly as he tries to free himself of that tenseness. He leans back, into the booth a little bit, although there’s not much room for him to do so, Casino still very much in his personal space as he listens to and comments on Kyung-Soo’s question, and then.

He tries to pull back, only to find his other hand is still trapped. There are fingers laced through his own, holding him down with an unexpected strength when he half consciously tries to lean away. The breath that he takes resembles a short gasp, and he tightens his fingers beneath Casino’s, dragging his hand - and therefore, Casino’s, tangled in his - over his thigh, and that possibly, barely wry smile melts into one that lights up the whole room.

-

“Oh my god. I can’t believe that happened.”

“That was a real thing. It really happened.”

“That was real! That happened! To both of us!”

“Oh my god. Okay. Yep. Sure! Yeah! Okay!”

Which one of the useless gay pair lying on the floor of the MEKA bay is speaking remains unclear; they talk over one another and agree with one another in turn, a cacophony of complaints and disbelief that echos through the room. Daehyun, for once, is absent, in all likelihood out somewhere getting real food, at a real restaurant or shop, that serves things which are actually edible, instead of living in the base on sugar and carbs. The trip had stretched on through the days, time passing in a near whirlwind as Lucio dealt with everything - venues, concerts, plans and dates, times and specifics, okaying merch and denying various promotional attempts - they were always trying to get him to be more outward about his advertising, and he always preferred it to be more subtle and personal - and somehow nearly the whole week had already passed.

Neither of them had come down from the high of that first night. Of course, there had been other times, other meetings other meals other brushes in the hall as they passed by one another - but nothing so intimate, nothing so close, nothing so private - nothing so  _ good _ . Lucio sighed, staring at the ceiling, in real three-dee physicality, instead of the slightly fuzzy slightly pixellated appearance he was used to, as he remembered the moment of traffic collapse in the Meka base.

Hana had caused it. Moving too quickly with too much familiarity, she had nearly crashed into Kyung-Soo in the halls, as he moved forwards with arms full of literal actual paper and scrolls - scrolls! Where in the hell - and she had to stop dead in her tracks lest she spend an hour picking them up with him. Daehyun had used the opportunity to catch up, berate her for leaving not only him behind,  _ again _ , but also for abandoning Lucio in a high-security, arguably dangerous building that he had no idea how to navigate. 

Casino had emerged, towel around his neck and loose-fitting shirt barely on, to see what the commotion was, and Lucio thanked his luck and long training that he managed not to run full force into the other. He smiled. Breath caught in Lucio’s throat, an apology trying to find its way out in the hall in the space just between the two of them, and Casino  _ smiled _ at him and all of that suave, heavy-lidded gaze pinned Lucio to the wall until Hana shouted back down - “HE’S NOT LOST, SEE? LUCIOOO!”

He’d been variously useless in the other direction, too; his one chance to literally trip Hana into the lap of Yuna had passed without incident, with the casual interference of others as they passed through the mess hall and Hana walked like her ass was on fire, Yuna following her with only her eyes. Lucio saw; unlike everyone else in their understood and noted patterns, Lucio saw the slow pan of her gaze and the lingering, like it was stuck on the back of Hana’s jacket, like she was trying to read something there between her shoulder blades.

Neither Hana nor Daehyun believed him when he tried to tell them about it later. He’d thrown his hands up in defeat, lying down on the floor with as much drama as he could muster, but then had found himself thinking of the other problem in his midst before he could put together a solid argument.

How was he supposed to function?! To tease or push or pull Hana this way or that, how was he supposed to navigate the dynamics and the comfortable ease with which they all moved around each other, their aggressive politeness and the flirting and care he could see  _ miles _ away but neither of them could fathom! Lucio burst out in a frustrated sigh, having lost his own interest - there’s only so much you can stare at a ceiling before you get bored. It’s not very much when you spend the majority of your life moving, anyways.

“He’s gay.” The ceiling disappears for a moment, hidden from view by his eyelids shut against the words that Hana spoke. She wasn’t that far away. He could probably hit her if he tried hard enough. “He’s definitely gay. You  _ can’t _ think anything else.” Yeah, he could hit her, he thought, opening his eyes and judging the distance from his foot to her arm. He was even wearing shoes! “Luci. Honey. You know better. You  _ met _ him!” Lucio, to his credit, does try to smack her, but he has misjudged the distance and his shoe-clad foot thumps against the floor of the bay with absolutely no effect. “You could just ask him.  _ Pleeease _ ask him. Stop pining-”

At this point, he musters all of the effort left in his little gay body, rolling over on his side by way of one foot, slowly crossing over the other leg, and then his hips, and then - with great effort - Lucio rolls his head over his own shoulder, rubbing his cheek and chin in the frizz that is his hair, and fixes her with a look. He knows how he looks - Korea is not kind to his hair, and he has not bothered to fix it today - not to mention the pining and whining and lying around he has done all week instead of moving and skating and jumping and  _ going _ \- but he also knows it pales in comparison to what Hana has just suggested. The words still come out of her mouth, slowly, sputtering, like an engine trying so hard to start and then finding that no matter how many times she turns that key, she is not getting away with it this time.

“And… do… something… about it LUCIO LISTEN.” That’s all it took. One single look at her, one carefully moderated, wordless look towards her pink-and-white form splayed out on the floor of the bay, surrounded by tools and cans of promotional drink, crashed out from whatever sugar high she usually rode in here. “Listen I can’t. I can’t ask her she would literally eviscerate me. All it would take is One Look,” a hand darts towards the ceiling, and then fingers spread as it slowly, painfully, falls down towards the ground again, “and I would be dead. She would probably use her bare hands, Luci, she doesn’t even need to have anything to slay me dead in my tracks I swear to -” Hana groans, burying her face in her hands and  _ probably _ saying real words, but what they are and frankly even what language they are escapes Lucio, as he continues to stare her down without flinching, without moving, without blinking.

“Maybe just her eyes,” Hana mumbles, the first understandable words from her since she covered her face, as she now slides those same hands down to her chest, nearly posing with them, “she wouldn’t even need to touch me. She’s absolutely fucking terrifying,” Hana pauses, and Lucio can see the stars and hearts in her eyes, that little escape of breath as she finishes the word but not the sentence, still looking off into the distance where she is not too scared to do anything about anything, and finishes: “...and  _ beautiful _ .”

There is a moment of silence, as they both pine in their own ways, Lucio still resting on his mildly uncomfortable pillow of hair, Hana’s hands still posed like there should be a flower inserted between them. He should do something. Get the both of them up and try and accidentally run them into someone. Anyone. Do anything productive about this, solve or accomplish anything in the week that he has been here, finish with a bang -

The bang that comes, however, is the very real sound of Daehyun slamming the door to the Meka bay open and letting it slam against the wall. Lucio looks up, over Hana’s prone form, while she declines to acknowledge her fellow mechanic at all, to see… what might be a person. There’s a stack of takeout containers as tall as he is, double-wide, definitely held in some kind of box but he’s not actually sure as he can’t see one under all of the containers. He’s got bags on either arm, too, little plastic things that have heavy weight in them, at least two per arm, and for an instant he feels bad about not helping.

The knowing gaze that comes from around the human-sized pile of food stops him before he starts to get up and help. This is a practiced, regular routine and Daehyun has no time for anyone’s problems, not when they might stand between him and the enjoyment of real, delicious food. Daehyun turns, making a perfect line towards the nearest, huge desk, where Lucio is pretty sure there’s a fridge, stashed under there somehow or other, certainly powered by something that should be used for machinery much larger, and much more complicated, than a simple refrigerator. The massive collection of provisions is set on the desk just above, and then he turns towards the two of them, arms still strung with take-away bags, and settles his hands on his hips.

They must make quite a scene. Laid out on the ground in the bay, both of them on their backs - well, mostly, now, half on his back and half on his side - spreadeagled. Parts of the bay surround them: tools, machinery, bits of Meka units, bags and jackets, cans and snack shrapnel, there’s probably a phone or two in there somewhere as well, but Lucio long lost track and cannot be assed to fix the issue. Daehyun knows that the both of them have been here, probably for hours, staring at the ceiling, unable to do anything about either predicament, lying there as if dazzled by the brightness of their respective crushes. Frankly Lucio could be, dazed by the words that his brain repeated for him endlessly on loop, that voice sneaking into every waking thought that was not carefully focused on something else, hitting him like a snowball to the side of the head when he least expected it.

Daehyun shakes his head, and turns away from the spectacle, starting to organize the tower of food into the receptacle that seems far too small to contain all of it. He gets nearly halfway before he has to make a comment, unable to restrain himself any further, turning to look at the two of them and ask:

“How do you two  _ function _ .” There’s no question there, it’s a lot more of a statement, but it also feels like it needs an answer. In the best possible way, the two superstars respond in the same moment, the same breath, words nearly running on top of one another and rendering their message illegible:

“We don’t,”

“We’re too gay.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is , uh , 3400 draft words turned into this monster chapter, there's 8600 words of draft left, I have been working on this since the short came out, please send support and excitement for me to get through the rest of this thing!!!
> 
> PS THANKS GRAY FOR THE RAREST RARE PAIR >:C


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